B. J. and I are blessed. We have had over fifty-two wonderful years of marriage. We have had a wonderful ministry that brought us a great wealth of matchless experiences. We have been blessed to travel to many exciting places at home and abroad--and we still get on the road, sea and in the air from time to time.

The pride of our life, though, is our wonderful family. In November our son Richard and daughter-in-law Tammy celebrate 29 happy years of marriage.

When people ask us how many children we have, we tell them “Six. We have a son, a daughter-in-law and four lovely grandchildren; that makes six kids.”

We were present at the birth of all our grandchildren three of which were born in Gwinnett County, Georgia. The oldest, Terah, was born in Vidalia, Ga.

Our family, the ones still at home, lives in Dacula. In a roomy three-story house on Swan’s Landing Drive.

Dacula, about forty-five minutes from downtown Atlanta, is in the foothills of Georgia’s Blue Ridge Mountains and is, if not mountainous, very hilly. The environment is beautiful. It is about an hour’s drive to one of our “second homes,” Helen, Ga.

Our son Richard is an executive and the General Sales Manager for Electrical Products Incorporated. He has been with them for over twenty-five years. He likes to get big orders for his company. One of his orders across the years was a multimillion-dollar order for electrical material that went in the construction of the Olympic Stadium--a project that he helped to oversee. His company supplied much of the electrical equipment that was used in the building of the Kings Bay Submarine Base at Kingsland, Ga.

Our lovely and delightful daughter-in-law Tammy is a professional restaurateur. She brings some of that expertise home too. She makes a seven-layer salad that is simply fundelicious. She loves to make the seven-layer salad for me when we are visiting with them especially at Christmas. We love our daughter-in-law Tammy. She is great fun. She is still trying to get me to go white-water rafting with her. I did “Shoot the Hooch” with her on the Chattahoochee in Helen.

Our oldest granddaughter Terah is a senior at Georgia State University in Atlanta and is a journalism major. She is the editor of the school newspaper--a paying job. She, like her Papa, likes to write and is a published writer. Her articles can be read online.

Our second oldest, Whitney, still lives at home and works with a Restaurant near Kroger Foods in Dacula. Whitney likes to swim in the pool, cut up, carry on, and have something hot on the stove for her grandparents after they have weathered the Atlanta Bypass on the way to their house.

Grandson Dustin is 6’1” and could have played big time basketball had he been so inclined. He plays drums and has a band. The band sometimes gets together when we are there. They really liven up the place with some spirited music and keep us entertained. He loves computers and finds jobs that pay him the most money.

Our youngest granddaughter Caroline is a freshman at Gainesville College in Gainesville, Ga. She has not fully decided on a major yet but she loves art and thinks that maybe she might one day find a career in art.

We communicate often with our family via the computer. Texting is our favorite way of getting together.

Caroline is my texting buddy. We sometimes text each other for long periods of time. She is a big tease and likes to play “one-upmanship” with her Papa. We have a lot of laughs together. She is hard to “best.” She gets a bang out of “besting” me.

When we are together whether at their home or ours, they always want Papa to either cook them something on the grill or make a big pot of chili--or both. They like to pick on me, tickle me in the ribs or send digs and jibes my way. There are many cheerful moments when we are with our kids.

When we settle in the den at their house, the kids, Sammie the family dog and the cats “Cookie” and “Keebler” cuddle B. J. and me. We romp and have great fun together; it has been this way for years and we love it.

We have a wonderful loving family and we love being together with them. We love so much the words we often hear from them both when we are together or texting, “Granny and Papa, we love yall very much.”

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